Breaking Through to the Other Side: The Washington Nationals

In what now seems like a previous life, I was a professional poker player. Most of my friends played a lot recreationally, but I was the only one to really swallow the pill, immerse myself fully into the game and take it to a higher level. Most of the…

Payroll Gap Closes In Baseball, But Not In The Way You Think

According to SI.com, the rest of baseball is starting to catch up with the big spenders.  Citing a study conducted for the Associated Press, SI.com asserted that thanks in large part to high-profile free agent signings by the Marlins (Reyes, Buehrle, …

Visions of 2012

The truth is, I was destined to be special from birth. I was delivered by a midwife on our old couch in the living room. It was a natural birth; there were no drugs and no electricity was used – the entire delivery was done by light of the late North…

Visions of 2012

The truth is, I was destined to be special from birth. I was delivered by a midwife on our old couch in the living room. It was a natural birth; there were no drugs and no electricity was used – the entire delivery was done by light of the late North…

Payroll Gap Closes In Baseball, But Not In The Way You Think

According to SI.com, the rest of baseball is starting to catch up with the big spenders.  Citing a study conducted for the Associated Press, SI.com asserted that thanks in large part to high-profile free agent signings by the Marlins (Reyes, Buehrle, …

Breaking Through to the Other Side: The Washington Nationals

In what now seems like a previous life, I was a professional poker player. Most of my friends played a lot recreationally, but I was the only one to really swallow the pill, immerse myself fully into the game and take it to a higher level. Most of the…

Break on Through to the Other Side

In what now seems like a previous life, I was a professional poker player. Most of my friends played a lot recreationally, but I was the only one to really swallow the pill, immerse myself fully into the game and take it to a higher level. Most of the…

True Value, Part III: In Plane Sight

Anyone who has spent copious hours of their time to master a skill can relate to the visceral feeling of being “in the zone,” and having times where everything clicks, only to be interrupted by bouts of ultimate frustration on the days when someth…

Blog Eat Blog: Pass the Baking Soda

February is typically the safest time for a vacation, as the hiatus requires minimal baseball withdrawal, but my return to the office was met with a mountain of news that rivaled the peaks that I had been carving just days prior. With the snow still …

Another Way to Measure Career Value

February posts are supposed to be about Spring Training, not the Hall of Fame.
Yet the Hall of Fame debate rages longer for baseball than any other sport.  Joe Posnanski recently discussed the Hall of Fame chances for current free agent Johnny Damon.

Deadly Accurate: NL Central

The National League Central is in a state of flux, given the cross-league emigration of two of the game’s biggest sluggers, and facing the eventual exile of one of the division’s six teams to the A.L. The Astros have new names signing the …

Deadly Accurate: AL West

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the American League West, a division that has produced just a single World Series champion since the inception of the 3-division format. That run may co…

Oakland Athletics Free Agent Signings: 2013-2024

Last Tuesday after this year’s Oscar nominees were announced, I couldn’t help but imagine Joe Morgan walking in circles and muttering to himself over and over, “Why on earth was Billy Beane nominated for Best Actor?”
It’s a shame that fifty y…

Blog Eat Blog: Irrational Radicals

As a person who spends considerable time outside the box, I was intrigued when I came across yesterday’s ESPN headline for “Five radical game-changing proposals.” I am a big fan of articles that integrate the opinions of various writers, and…

Deadly Accurate: NL West

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the National League West, a division comprised of top-heavy teams that has seen a different club capture the flag in each of the past three seasons.
-
…

Deadly Accurate: AL Central

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the American League Central, a division that has seen all but one ballclub finish in the top two spots over the last two years, with the Kansas City …

Deadly Accurate: NL East

The review of BP2k11 continues with the NL East, a division that is undergoing a dramatic shift in the fortunes of several franchises. The Marlins have started throwing money around like it’s 1997, the Mets are in rapid decline, the Braves have…

True Value, Part II: Press Your Luck

The sand trap of luck has sucked in a legion of baseball enthusiasts. Lured by deviant BABIP’s, even astute analysts continue to walk into the trap, and proceed to sink as they grasp for statistical explanations to pull themselves out of the muck. Lu…

Deadly Accurate: AL East

 
The projection game is dicey, with a multitude of systems competing for the accuracy crown, and the inevitability of outlier performances that are bound to make certain predictions look foolish in retrospect. The crew at Baseball Prospectus has unde…

Deadly Accurate: AL East

 
The projection game is dicey, with a multitude of systems competing for the accuracy crown, and the inevitability of outlier performances that are bound to make certain predictions look foolish in retrospect. The crew at Baseball Prospectus has unde…

True Value, Part I: Failure to Communicate

Value.
It is a simple word, yet such a complicated concept. The meaning of the term is the source of considerable debate, especially as it relates to the game of baseball, where the subjective perception of value is forced to reconcile with the object…

Blog Eat Blog: Burning Rubber

The alarm clock has rung, marking the dawn of the season of roster turnover, and some teams are wasting little daylight before addressing their off-season needs. The new faces extend to front offices all over the country, as no fewer than eight ballcl…

A New Way to Select Series MVPs

As soon as David Murphy flew out to left field to end Game 7 of the 2011 World Series, it seemed a foregone conclusion that David Freese would earn the World Series MVP title.  Who else deserved the award but the hometown player with the single-best W…

Wild Cards

 
Game Seven of the World Series is an experience like no other. Every other elimination game involves one team having the chance to take a champagne shower, with the other just hoping to play another day, but Game Seven means do-or-die for every play…

Raising Aces: Pitch Sequencing

“Sequencing” is another one of those terms in the pitching lexicon that has multiple definitions. In Raising Aces, I have often used the mechanical definition of sequencing to describe the order in which a pitcher executes the various links of the…

Further Decline (?) of the Large Market Teams

What happens in baseball when a pre-conceived narrative doesn’t really fit reality?  In the case of Justin Verlander, you make it fit anyway.
When it comes to the Oakland Athletics, Moneyball, and small market teams, it seems like the baseball commu…

What Are You Looking At?

 
Here we are on the cusp of the World Series, and though I should be filling up the word count with a lengthy diatribe on the Cards and Rangers, instead I find myself in a state of reflection. The playoffs are a challenge for a baseball writer bent o…

Raising Aces: Matt Moore

 
The Tampa Bay Rays exhausted their season to the final stroke before clinching the playoffs, and with top starters David Price and James Shields having pitched in the days prior, the Rays turned to a rookie pitcher to start Game One of the ALDS aga…

Blog Eat Blog: Gone in Sixty Minutes

A lot can happen in an hour.
It was approximately 7:45pm (PST) when I left work on Wednesday night, and though I had missed the majority of the day’s crucial palette of games, I was relieved to learn upon my departure that three of the four conte…

Blog Eat Blog: Agony of Defeat

I was at the Oakland O.co Coliseum last Friday night, and witnessed the Tigers’ 3-1 victory over the A’s that clinched the AL Central. Watching the Detroit players celebrate was a tough pill to swallow, as a painful reminder that the hometown Athl…

Will Someone Please Give Derek Jeter Some Attention

I’m not sure I ever thought I’d say this but it looks like the baseball community is suffering from Derek Jeter fatigue.
For perhaps the first time it appears as though the Captain is not getting his due.  How else to explain the lack of recogniti…

Blog Eat Blog: Tor-Votto?

September is a time for magic numbers, cups of coffee, and friendly banter about the end-season awards. Trade speculation is typically saturated in July, and then cooked over a hot stove during the winter while we base-heads play the woulda-coulda-shou…

Stras Wars V: Return of the Prodigy

It has been a year since the last time that we watched an episode of Stras Wars, and while the previous installment was clouded with mystery in the aftermath of the UCL strain heard ’round the world, the re-emergence of Stephen Strasburg on a Ma…

Value Exists At The Bottom of The Standings As Well

Maybe it’s the relative lack of playoff races this year that’s contributing to what seems to be an excessive amount of discussion for the month of August regarding individual awards.
Simply put, baseball fans get worked up over their Cy Young Winne…

Blog Eat Blog: CY Clones

 
The MVP races are heating up, and thus the baseball blogosphere has been saturated by the competition between the leagues’ top players down the stretch. MVP awards are often won and lost in the waning weeks of the season, and raw totals will …

Next Page »